


Zero hour

by marieincolour



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asthma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/507846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marieincolour/pseuds/marieincolour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Dean struggles with asthma. Sam leaves for college, and the lines between emotional and physical pain blurs. </p>
            </blockquote>





	Zero hour

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I don't own Elton John (or any of his music :P), Supernatural or any of the characters. I'm just having some fun, and I'm not making money on this.  
>  **A/N:** People have been asking for more asthma!Dean, so here he is. It's written around when Sam goes off for college, and to make it work (and because it was fun) I did a bit of rewriting of that whole event. Not much, but you might find that it doesn't match canon word for word. This might seem like Sam-bashing, which it's not. It's just a difficult situation where the only one given a real voice is Dean, and he's not all that happy with Sam.  
> 

**Zero hour**  
  
  
Sam's barely left before the clenching in Dean's chest sends him scrambling for the little blue inhaler buried deep in his pocket. He doesn't know if it's one of those times when he sucks down the medication and hopes, from about twenty years of going to the tiny thing for comfort and relief, that the medication will do more than merely open his airways or if he's really having an attack. 

The bus disappears down the ramp heading for the interstate, and he closes his eyes, his right hand white-knuckled around the little blue thing, and then he lets himself tilt forwards to rest his head against the steering wheel. Allows himself to drive home listening to early Elton John, feels his body expand and contract with the magnitude of what's just happened all at once.

_Shit._

  
It feels final. Like something ended. One age over, another one just waiting to begin, and he hadn't expected the move from childhood to adulthood to feel so _clear._ It's like he just pressed that big red button that says “Don't push the big red button”. _This is it_ , kind of, and he knows instinctively that nothing will be the same.

Even if Sam came back right the fuck now, the ink on his bus ticket still slightly wet and his stupid hair floppy and slightly too long, it still wouldn't be the same. 

He hates himself for his big mouth and for the words that are out there, floating in a little cloud right over the passenger seat. Sam's hamburger wrapper from last night is still on the floor, a footprint from where a wet shoe the size of a small boat has leaned up against the door visible from where he sits.

Dean swallows hard, and finally lets out a breath that wheezes heavy with regrets and foul words. Knows that they both have to give this some time, can't fix it straight away howev. All three of them, actually, because John..

John is still back at the motel. 

_Shit._

  
He imagines what his next conversation with Sam will be. Holds it in a _thousand_ different ways in his head, a tinny copy of Sam's voice answering his own. And this will be his theme song for the next few years while he comes to terms with the fact that some things you do, some things you say, can never be taken back or fixed. 

  
-

  
John has his face buried in a newspaper when he comes in. His phone is next to it on the table top, clunky and big and impractical – it runs out of batteries just short of eight hours, but he looks up when Dean comes in. The room smells of coffee and sleep.

“He gone?” he says simply, like Sam just went off to sleep-away camp or something, and didn't just leave them behind forever.

“Yeah.” Dean croaks. Fiddles with the blue inhaler again, takes another hit. 

John doesn't look up. The little puff sounds hollow and loud in the tiny room, the only other sounds the turning of newspaper pages and the tiny beep from John's phone every now and again signaling that John forgot to charge it during the night again. 

Fucking _again._

  
“You need a new phone” Dean says, because it's mundane and practical and the kind of technical shit he can rib his dad out over without getting pinned to the wall and skinned alive. _Figuratively._

Dad grunts. Turns another page. 

Dean locks himself in the bathroom. Sits on the toilet for about five minutes before he curses under his breath and takes a shower. Feels something in his chest unclench with the movements and chores of everyday life, the little things that make this day just another day and not a monumental step towards loneliness. His hands tremble with an overdose of albuterol, and his heart beats like a jackrabbit.

  
John is gone when he comes back out, his phone connected to the brick-sized charger plugged into the wall socket, effectively cutting off communication and giving Dean a win at the same time. Dean sighs, a squeaky little wheeze clinging to his breath on the way out and sits down on the bed still wet from his shower. 

  
_Shit._

  
-

  
He's not sure where Dad's gone off to. It's not his business, his dad is a grown man and.. And so is Dean. He's still young enough to feel like he should spend every night hooking up and hanging out and getting to know people and be social, but the itch for socializing isn't there as he settles himself on top of the bed covers to watch TV.

  
A lady in tight curls tries to make him order a silver cleaning kit by phone, and he wonders what Sam is doing in that moment. 

  
-

  
John wakes him up the next morning. He smells of drink and cigarette smoke, but his eyes are clear. Bloodshot, but clear. His voice isn't slurred, and his movements as he packs their shit up and tries to get Dean moving are precise and sober. 

Dean watches him for a minute, pretends to be ten again and on his way out to snooze and play his Game Boy in the back of the Impala because Sam's claimed shotgun (as per their agreement of alternating shotgun rides).

  
He turns the stereo up to fight off the silence that day. And the next. Elton sings _“This boy's too young to be singing the blues”._ Dean watches the landscape go by. Disagrees.

  
There's a ghost in... Well, it hardly matters. Dean spends ten minutes interviewing a kid that's taken grunge on as a religion. Waits for John to call him and tell him if he figured anything out on _his_ interview. The collar of his black suit is tight around his neck in the cloying heat of late summer, and he tugs on it while fumbling for his inhaler. 

His chest unclenches as he calms himself down. Forces his heart rate down. 

  
And then he spends three and a half hours wheezing in a library, pouring over church records. 

  
-

  
It's Dean's job to dig. It's John's job to dig along with him, and it's Sam's job to keep watch. 

Dean holds the flashlight flat against his thigh as he listens to John panting for breath trying to dig up a grave fast and efficiently without having a heart attack. 

“Got to keep in shape, old man” he said when they arrived, and John's eyes strayed to Dean's hand where he held it clamped over his chest before nodding.

“Keep watch” he says.

  
He coughs twice from the fumes of the fire burning right next to him, old wood and bones going up in smoke, and feels his chest tighten like in a vice when there's no one there to tell them to bury the body _neatly. Respectfully._

They do it anyway.

  
For a moment he thinks they'll be all right. Just for a moment. They go out for food and coffee, then head back to the motel to sleep for a few hours and pack up after what's been another salt and burn, quick and cheap and pain free. Relatively speaking, because John's hands are chafed raw. 

It feels like normal, like Sam is just away for the night. They did this all spring – just the two of them digging and burning and researching while Sam studied and read and studied. 

Filled out credit card applications with steadily more ludicrous names as Sam muttered under his breath and turned the volume on his discman up higher to deal with their ruckus. 

But that was meant to be temporary. It was a situation dealt with because Sam would be joining them, and then John could go off on longer hunts without them while the two of them stuck together. Just the last pull of the educational system holding them back until they were free to work and swim or sink or what the fuck ever. 

  
And now.. Now there's nothing Dean fears more than spending a night in the same motel room as his dad. The break from eternal quarreling and arguing and shouting is nice. They grew steadily more volatile throughout the summer, too, and Dean's glad to leave a room with at least _one_ functional lamp. 

But there's nothing he fears more than having to sit in heavy silence with John. Not because John will tell him it's his fault. That he did this, or that he didn't do enough. Not because Dad will cry and bare his innermost thoughts and regrets and demand consoling that Dean doesn't have in him, or because they'll have to “talk it out” or anything. 

Nothing like that. 

He's just never been alone with John like this. Not in this bleak future world where Sam's gone and it's just them. No future prospects of happiness or peace.

  
His chest is clenched so hard he has to steal John's pillow to be able to sleep, propping himself slightly higher up. He dozes off with his inhaler clenched tightly in his hand, the trembling jitteriness of an albuterol overdose pumping through him. He wakes up around three, he thinks, and Dad's asleep in the next bed, his head tilted back and his mouth open because there's nothing under his head. He's snoring. There's a half of JD on his nightstand, and Dean finds relief in the fact that it's not empty.

He struggles to take in a deep breath, and coughs so hard it nearly makes him vomit. Drinks some water. Lies awake for an hour, wheezing and keeping his chest expanded as much as he can, feels the muscles of his sides and stomach strain to help him breathe.

  
He's pretty sure god is off somewhere, laughing his ass off. He spends his evenings that first week watching TV, his chest and stomach tight while John roams the bars. Brings home winnings, smelling increasingly stronger of spirits and cigarette smoke that makes Dean wheeze and cough.

  
Sam texts him one late night. “Everything ok. -Sam”

That's all he says. That's it, after days and _days_ where Dean's been worrying and thinking and regretting and fucking wishing, and all Sam can think to say is that _he's_ all right, and his chest.. His chest is.. 

His chest is trampled, squeezed in a vice and clawed open all at once, his lungs burning with effort all the way up his throat, and he straightens his back as he gets to his feet, unable to keep sitting as he throws his head back to get in all the air he can, and.. God _dammit._

  
The little bag with the broken zipper is still jammed between the back seat and the front seat of the Impala, looking unobtrusive and innocent with the fraying edges and peeling lettering on the front. 

Dean knows better, straightens his back and throws his head back again as he expands his chest sideways to force in more air. Lets it out slowly, holding it in as long as he can, feeling the swelling increase with every breath. Breathes in with as much strength as he can while he squeezes the little bottle to get all the contents down into the plastic medicine cup. The familiar motions feel foreign and odd, and his hands tremble slightly as he pulls in a breath that sounds more like an accordion than a breath. He hates that wheeze, even though he knows it's a good thing.

Sam usually does this part, after bitching for the better part of fifteen minutes until Dean is sweaty and tired and acquiesces, and he misses Sam so fiercely he almost tears up right then. Not that Sam sits there holding his hand or anything, that's just their game. Dean denies that anything is wrong, Sam insists there is, and it refills some of that need for comfort that's still somewhere inside him, now matter how old or how big or how strong he is. It's just something about being seen and noticed.

These moments, when the world is too big and Dean just wants everything to be the way they should are the hardest. 

  
He plugs the thing in, leaning down on all fours against every instinct in his body which is telling him to keep upright, and fiddles with the off-white machine box standing on the little nightstand. There are two stickers on it, fastened crookedly over the lid. One has a little dog on it, pink tongue sticking out. The other one Daffy Duck. He can almost smell the banana/Coke-gum flavor on them still, remembers a floppy haired Sam telling Dad he's “ _just decorating it”_ for Dean. They're yellowed and stained now. The machine should've been replaced years ago, but.. 

That's not how they roll. 

  
The green elastic on the mask have gone on one side – it always goes when he takes it off, and he reties it almost absent-mindedly before fastening the thing over his face, listening to the hiss and whirr of the nebulizer as he flicks through channels and tries to remember to count breaths and breathe evenly. Steadily, slowly. Imagines the white air inside the mask expanding to every crevice in his lungs, into every areola and soothing them, calming them all down. 

His eyes droop, they always do, and he lets them. His chest is opening, slowly but surely, and it's okay now. This right here, this little ritual that demanded his attention every night before bed time and every lunch break through elementary feels natural and normal, and the hiss calms him the same as the rumbling noise of the Impala's engine does. 

It's almost as if Sam is right there, palming his hair back from his forehead and muttering softly to him. He doesn't open his eyes. Lets warm hands remove the mask still damp with condensation, switching off the hitching noises from the machine that's run dry, and then he's tipping over onto his pillows. Sleepy, heavy.

  
John sits on the next bed over, one hand deep in his hair, the other still holding the mask Dean should have grown out of at the age of five, but never did because he can never keep awake through the 20 minutes the machine needs. He remembers the drive to the hospital with a three year old Dean in the back, his lips purple and his chest heaving. He was brave even then, didn't cry. He remembers the little voice from the doorway to the living room saying “Can't breathe, daddy”, and the labored breaths from the tiny little body that just stared up at him like he could fix anything. Anything at all. Nights spent on a hard cot in the hospital, only to be woken when the hiss from the nebulizer started up again. He sleeps through it these days. 

His eyes stray from the stickers on the ancient machine to Dean's face, pale and tired in the dark room. He hasn't paid any attention to the thing for years. Dean manages his own medications, and Sam manages.. Managed the rest. 

He wonders when he started considering support and love a chore and left it up to his sons.

_Shit._

  
-

  
When Dean opens his eyes next his chest is still tight, the muscles around his ribs and his upper belly sore. He feels better. Marginally. 

On the nightstand next to him sits the machine, and his cheeks flush red both in anger and sadness and embarrassment to find the parts've all been cleaned carefully, stacked different from how Sam would've done it, but just like his dad used to for all those years before Dean, and finally Sam, took over. 

  
He closes his eyes tightly, and then slinks off to grab a shower. Tries to let all the thoughts of the last few days wash off and slink down the drain. Tries to have faith that it'll be all right. Someday. 

  
In the bed next to his back in the main room, John tries to do the same. And in a narrow bed a few states over, Sam closes his eyes tightly against the same thoughts. 

  
-

  
_“I've got to, Dean. This is my future on the line.”_

“ _Yeah, well. You can't have it all.”_

  
_Sam looks at him, his eyes open and honest and resigned, and Dean tries not to feel too much like a selfish dick._

  
_“I know” he says, and his voice is quiet. This isn't a decision made in the moment, and the realization that Sam's been contemplating leaving for however long hits Dean like a ton of bricks. It's not the fact that Sam's going to college – his brother got accepted to_ Stanford _, and he's proud of that, despite everything. It's more that Sam's been thinking this through, and still made the decision to leave him behind after Dean spent literally_ years _not leaving Sam behind. It's not that he expected payment for his sacrifices, but.._

  
_“Fuck you” he spits. Angry in a way he's never been with Sam. Hurt and scared, and it's like there's a stranger standing before him in second hand-jeans and a t-shirt stolen from Dad._

“ _Fuck you! Do you think we ever wanted you around anyway, huh? Just fucking_ go. _Live your apple pie-life or whatever it is you think you want and just leave everyone who's ever stood with you behind, huh? Because I swear to you, this is_ it. _I will never.. I won't.. There will be nothing left for you here.”_

  
_Sam watches him, his eyes still calm and resigned. Dean feels the resentment that the life he tried to make for Sam will never be enough sting with enough force to bring him to his knees._

  
_Dean means to take it back. He does, but then Dad's there, and like through a fog Dean hears him tell Sam that if he leaves he should stay gone. They've gone too far, he thinks._

_He takes a labored breath. Hears it whine in his chest, hitch against his chest bone before it escapes. Sam's still watching him._

  
_An hour later, Dean watches the bus disappear down the ramp headed for the interstate.  
“Zero hour”, Elton sings. “And I think it's gonna be a long, long time”, Dean thinks. _

  
_-_  
  
In about five years Sam will be there again, will have been there for a while, standing too tall and too strong in jeans that were bought new and a t-shirt John's never even seen. His movements will be the same as he measures and washes and prepares as they've always been. Bitches and moans and chews his brother out, and Dean will feel that sting of old pain at the sight of even the _new_ nebulizer he's got – without dogs or daffy duck – even while he thanks the stars that sometimes the words we say that are too much and too powerful are still only words. And then he'll doze off, the slightly different hiss of this new thing still enough to put him right out. Sam will clean out the medicine cup, mask and tube and leave them to dry on a kitchen towel. They'll hunt some ghosts, save the world, and then they'll say more powerful words that can never be taken back and get the fuck over it. 

It'll never be as powerful or as painful as that first time that drove them from each other for what felt like a lifetime, back when college lasted forever and childhood was never ending. 

  
  



End file.
